every other right answer
wrong. As you know, philosophy does not progress in its essentials. It
merely continues to clarify what the problems are."

"I prefer to die next time!" I shouted. "I want to be a live human being
or a dead one, not a machine."

"Maybe you won't be a machine. Nothing exactly like this has happened
before to a living organic being."

I knew I had to be on my guard. What peculiar scheme was afoot? "You're
trying to say something's still wrong with me. It isn't true. I feel as
well as I ever have."

"Your 'feeling' is a dangerous illusion." His face was space-dust grey
and I realized with horror that he meant all of it. "I had to tell you
the parable and show the possible alternatives clearly. Treb, you're
riddled with Centaurian Zed virus. Unless we remove almost all the
remaining first growth organisms you will be dead within six months."

I didn't care any more whether he meant it or not; the idea was too
ridiculous. Death is too rare and anachronistic a phenomenon today.
"You're the one who needs treatment, Doctor. Overwork, too much study,
one idea on the brain too much."

Resigned, he shrugged his shoulders. "All the first matter should be
removed except for the spinal chord and the vertebrae. You'd still have
that."

"Very kind of you," I said, and walked away, determined to have no more
of his lectures now or in the future.

Marla wanted to know why I seemed so jumpy. "Seems is just the word," I
snapped. "Never felt better in my life."

"That's just what I mean," she said. "Jumpy."

I let her have the last word but determined to be calmer from then on.

I was. And, as the weeks passed, the mask I put on sank deeper and
deeper until that was the way I really felt. 'When you can face death
serenely you will not have to face it.' That is what Sophilus, one of
our leading philosophers, has said. I was living this truth. My work on
infinite series went more smoothly and swiftly than any mathematical
research I had engaged in before and my senses responded to living with
greater zest than ever.

* * * * *

Five months later, while walking through Hydroponic Park, I felt the
first awful tremor through my body. It was as if the earth beneath my
feet were shaking, like that awful afternoon on Nirva's moon. But no
rocks fell from this sky and other strollers moved across my vision as
if the world of five minutes ago had not collapsed. The horror was onl